Environmental Risk Assessment Of Solid Waste Management During Pandemic

The rate of solid waste generation along drainage channel has increased to a devastating and uncontrollable rate in Nigeria as a result of human daily and economic activities and the increment was seen during pandemic. Modernization, high standard of living, increase in population, technological innovation and excessive urbanization over the years has drastically contributed to the generation of municipal waste, through industrial and domestic activities. Due to inadequate waste disposal method, dumping of refuse along drainage channel is an unauthorized places is now the order of the day in the country, both in local and national level and penalties that are placed on defaulters are not been effectively carried out.

This study investigates the effect of indiscriminate solid waste disposal and environmental issues associated with the management of solid waste in ado-odo Ota Government, Nigeria. Primary and Secondary data were used for the study. Primary data were acquired through structured questionnaires administered to a sample of 300 respondents which was randomly selected from the each local government area. The Questionnaire was administered based on the data elicited from the respondents were analyzed through non-parametric method of Chi-square. Three (3) hypotheses were formulated for this study which was all rejected; showing that indiscriminate dump of Solid Waste had significant effects on Environment, Health, people’s attitude and practice. Secondary data were acquired from desk review method; information on environmental issues emanating from poor management of indiscriminate solid waste was obtained from literatures that are relevant to the study. The results of the findings obviously show that several major streets, open spaces, and even water ways are been used as refuse dump sites within the local government. The major environmental issues resulting from improper disposal and poor management of solid waste in Ota are physical nuisance of the waste to the environment. Generally, the study shows that soil, air and water pollution in the study area are caused by both pathogenic and chemical elements from these large amount of solid waste that hit some of the market places, abandoned land/building and major streets. Therefore, this paper is aimed at assessing the environmental risk of solid waste management during pandemic in Ado-Odo Ota LGA, Ogun State.